Syria's new government says it thwarted Islamic State attack on Shia shrine
The new Syrian government announced on Saturday that it had foiled an attack by the Islamic State group (IS) targeting the Sayyida Zeinab Shia shrine in the south of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
A Syrian intelligence source, quoted by the official Sana news agency, said that security forces "managed to foil an attempt by IS to carry out a bomb attack inside the mausoleum of Sayyida Zeinab".
The source added that several people had been arrested.
IS previously targeted the Damascus shrine in a July 2023 bombing that killed at least six people.
Since the rapid takeover and ousting of President Bashar al-Assad by rebels led by the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group last month, concerns have been raised over a potential resurgence of IS in Syria.
The group, which captured much of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, was largely crushed in 2019, leaving its remaining supporters scattered across the region.
However, it has been involved in sporadic attacks in recent months as the collapse of the Assad government led to a security vacuum in parts of Syria.
In December, a group of IS fighters reportedly killed at least 54 people in Syria's Homs region, all of whom are said to have been former members of the Assad government attempting to flee.
The news came from the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), a British-based monitoring group, following a declaration from HTS that all those who were conscripted into the Syrian military would receive amnesty.
